Editor’s note: Warner wrote to William Maxwell in August 1952 to tell him about a new enterprise: ‘the other thing that has happened this week is that Valentine has burst into business, and has opened, not a shop but the room of indetermined purpose that houses the piano and the sewing machine and the geraniums, for the sake of Victoriana and antiques’ (The Element of Lavishness, p. 35). The blossoming of the business led to Warner’s charming sequence of stories about Mr Edom, the owner of Abbey Antiques, and also to this previously unpublished sequence dedicated to Valentine and dated 1953–54.
Small Antiques: Six Poems
1 The drought of time has parched the heavens away; But though in shrivelled strands they fall The stitchworks rooks are flying still, And still the Boy is gay. Trailing his flag, waving his feathered hat, Out from his cottage home he runs to greet The morning of an irrecoverable day.
2 The lady sat sewing at serges and hopsacks, At taffetas, calicoes, muslins, and cambrics, And flannel and nainsook and bombazine; But her wandering heart was away in the Trossachs Or down by the shores of Loch Katrine.
Her sight was weary of lockstitch and garter- Stitch, gathers and gussets and cuff and collar, And tuck and picot and ruffle and roux; But loud in her soul rang the song of the Harper, Like wine was the warcry of Roderick Dhu.
3 It was my mother’s maiden name – Elizabeth Wall – She thought not so for ever; But stormy seas did rise and whelm And drowned the giver Who gave her me, a child of shame.
He carved it on this parting pledge – Elizabeth Wall – I never got another, But lived a virgin sad and sage; As I did mother, Snuff comforts me in my old age.
4 Daniel is shriven from the den, And must the lions remain? They grieve at this disparity For they were good as he. Their eyes with solemn tears are ripe, In vain their tears must fall: Daniel is Jesu’s antetype, While they are Death and Hell.
5 Long-a-day the Ox drew, Hauled the load and tugged the plough, Work was bred into his bones, Gender filched from out his loins. On his rump the stick taboured, Under heat or wet he laboured Till the one day came to pass Of salting slaughtering Martinmass.
Then upon another day Wit took up a vertebra And discerned a judgment seat For minister or advocate. With his paintbrush and penknife He brought the mannikin to life – Rosy, pawky, pursed and bland, And set off with wig and band.
Advocate or Minister, Skill of this or next world’s lore, Perch like butterflies upon Labour as on the oxen-bone.
6 Small was the hand, and gloved, And its ring-finger grooved By lawful matrimony, That to mass or to market Was wont to carry it.
For the considered purchase Of brie, romaine, cervelas, Out came the little money, With a sou for the beggar On the steps of Sacré Coeur.
Female use and wont Polished the bold front Of Delacroix’s Liberty With a smoking gun Urging her rebels on.
Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland Archive, Dorset History Centre; DHC reference number D/TWA/A09; previous reference number at the Dorset County Museum 2012.125.3258.